


All Things Pass

by Kastaka



Category: The Weight After Water - Loika
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28170438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/pseuds/Kastaka
Summary: She had remade everything for her.
Relationships: Ersa/Istoria
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	All Things Pass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brightabandon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightabandon/gifts).



Once upon a time, there was a girl.

It was a time of wonders, great and terrible.

It was a time of fear, for those without power.

It was a time where a mountain was no shelter.

It was a time when no distance would save you.

Those who could, could have everything, until another took it from them.

Those who could not, could hope only to be found an interesting plaything.

It was a time when little hope was to be found.

It was a time where cities died in a moment.

It was a time of little hope and less certainty.

It was a time of beauty and devastation.

Once upon a time, there was a girl.

She doesn't summon waterfalls into her bedroom.

She doesn't disappear to the edges of the world.

She can't change the seasons on her mere whim.

She can't write her own name across the night sky.

But she is…

She is not especially beautiful, by her estimation.

She is not especially clever, she does not sing well…

But she is… valued.

It is inexplicable. It is beyond understanding. 

It is the only true thing.

Anything else can change in a moment.

Summer can turn into winter.

A forest can turn into a desert.

A clan can be turned into docile pets.

The stars themselves can be rearranged.

The world has only one certainty.

It must be a certainty.

It has to be a certainty.

It is not something…

It is not something that the girl chose.

The world heaves with the will of those who can choose.

This girl is not one of those.

The world weeps with the thwarted will of those who cannot.

With the tiny two-hearts who serve them tea.

Do they remember running free?

Do they remember pride?

These are dangerous thoughts.

Better to be happy.

To smile.

Not too much.

She can never know that…

She can know whatever she likes.

She can peer into the girl's secret heart.

So even that must remain… correct.

Must concede.

Must… love.

It would be so selfish -

So selfish not to love.

She has everything she might want.

Her every requirement is anticipated.

Marvels of spectacular beauty await her.

She is provided with the best of everything,

and asked so little.

Her love conquers all for her.

Conquers need, conquers want, conquers time.

Without someone to do these things for…

What would she do instead?

They need each other.

She really is needed -

The girl who can't choose for herself

The girl whose simple desires can be satisfied.

The girl who can be surprised,

and laugh in surprised delight,

and love the one who brings her gifts,

and not look behind the curtain.

She can't look behind the curtain.

There is never resentment.

Her love does all the work, defending and cherishing her,

in a world that convulses under the contradictory will of so many others.

But her love is the best.

Her love cannot be defeated.

Her love cannot be thwarted.

Her love cannot be stopped.

She must be grateful.

She has everything she ever wanted.

When she misses those who have passed before them,

her love re-creates them.

They are not quite the same, 

but she must be grateful.

She teaches herself to be happy.

It shouldn't be difficult, should it?

It would be difficult to be happy, if you were one of the little people.

If you were one of the people underfoot.

If you were not loved.

But she is loved with the greatest and most abiding love there could ever be.

Her love has spent her considerable power on enhancing and strengthening their love.

(Although spent implies that there might be an end to it -

and there is no end.)

The future spreads before them.

A boundless plain for them to conquer.

A world full of familiar wonder.

She had built the perfect mountainside.

The view across the hills and valleys below was spectacular.

The settlements and forests had been grown to perfectly satisfy her aesthetics.

The grass was soft. The flowers were radiant. The sunlight itself was perfectly angled.

She had built the perfect mountainside for her love.

They had been there thousands of times before.

They had been everywhere.

They had been everywhere thousands of times before.

Her love had torn it up and re-made it thousands of times.

Searching for something new.

Some new spark of life. Some new surprise. Some new peal of laughter.

But.

It had been thousands of years.

They had been everywhere.

They had done everything.

And the girl…

The girl had been…

The girl had been watching.

The girl had been practicing, in moments snatched from her love's distraction.

The girl had everything.

Except one thing.

Except the ability to choose.

Except the ability… to end.

Their love had written itself across the worlds for a thousand thousand years.

Their love was true and real.

Their love was the only real thing.

But nobody had ever asked the girl.

She knew what would happen.

She didn't know what would happen.

She knew that it was incredibly selfish.

It was the most selfish thing anyone could have ever done.

She had everything she could ever have wanted, forever.

She could have made everything a paradise for everyone, forever, 

just by letting her love know that was what she wanted.

But

Forever was not what she wanted

So at the peak of her joy,

At the mountainside of perfection,

In the moment of her deepest love and sorrow,

she smiled.

She lay down on the grass and flowers

(the perfectly soft grass

the perfectly vibrant flowers)

as if she was gazing up at the stars

at their love written across the cosmos.

But she did not look up

She did not look

She closed her eyes

And she died.

(What did she think her love would do?

Tear apart the cosmos.

Destroy everything that reminded her of her love -

which was everything

as she had remade everything for her.

_All things pass._ )


End file.
